Hercules12

Hercules 1/2

"GENMA SAOTOME'S TIME AND SPACE MISADVENTURES!"

by Jim Robert Bader

(Inspired by the works of Rumiko Takahashi,
with some help from a guy who really hit a Homer)

Chapter Twelve.

Mythology Lessons.

Theban Palace (The Part Still Standing)-1254 BC

Oedipus had to admit that he was feeling rather good, all other things being considered equal. Though he had not wanted the job of being the new King, he knew that he more than had the administrative skills required for the position, and a very good thing that, considering the condition that the previous occupants of the palace had left the Palace in, both physically and financially. Just examining the records taken by the court scribes alone had shown him what a mass he had to clean up here, and the picture just kept looking more and more complex the longer he studied them. The financial picture alone looked grim, and the number of people and nations to whom the Theban capitol owe money to vastly exceeded their yearly take in tax revenues and tariffs.

And yet, for all of that, Oedipus found himself enjoying the task of compiling lists and recording assets. Unlike the previous king, he could read and write in Doric and Ionian script, while his Aetolian was excellent, and he could even manage some Hittite and Phoenician. All of this was needful to make sense of the vast array of documents and texts produced by the scribes when he had requested that he be given all that was in their possession. No doubt they thought to overwhelm him with too much paperwork, a mistake his tutors back in Corinth could have warned them about since he had always been a voracious reader. Being too lame to spend much time in physical pursuits, like his peers, he had honed his intellect like a well-worked muscle and he understood the real working of power after having grown up watching the operations of the Corinthian palace. As such there was little that the scribes could to present him that was beyond his ability to handle. This sort of thing was meat and drink for him, and once he found the basic roots of the problem he understood just how the Kingdom had gotten itself into such a deplorable condition.

Simply put the place was in a wreck because the people who had ruled as Kings had not the slightest idea of what it meant to rule a Kingdom. Electryon was a fair military sort but utterly pathetic when it came to balancing his financial records, and he tended to appoint lackeys and hangers-on to important positions, not people qualified for administrative posts. Nepotism had its uses, Oedipus had to admit, but rewarding people who were unfit for their posts was as much good as hiring from the Thieves' Guilde, and probably far more costly! The Usurper King also proved to be a deplorable diplomat and had gotten himself involved in a few rather pointless conflicts that had drained the treasury while producing no discernable benefits, other than to isolate Thebes and antagonize its neighbors. As was true for many a tyrant, the King then tried to replenish his depleted coffers by raising the taxes on the peasants, a surefire recipe for bringing down their wrath, once the Nobles and Merchants felt the pinch of his avarice.

When Electryon was overthrown (which had been inevitable) all of those loyal to the previous administration were purged from office and forced into exile...understandable politics, really, but not very sound from an administrative standpoint. The new King, Creon, was a far more honest military man than his predecessor, but he had been even more out of his depths when trying to set up a new government, and within a single day he had discovered how much out of his depths he truly was, and the few court scribes kept on hand made sure that he had a full appraisal of just what a mess had been left to the Kingdom.

War debts, promissory agreements, debt bonds with city-states with which Thebes was still on friendly terms, basic costs of operations and the funding of staff and palace guards...all glorious means by which dinars could flow out of the palace far faster than it could be replaced. In short it was a typical mess for any state that had been this badly mismanaged. By rights Oedipus should have resented having such a financial sink hole dumped literally on his lap, but instead he found himself almost eager for the challenge. It was a chance to finally put his education to some use, and with the authority of a crown to his name he could institute some of his long-cherished theories of reform to see if they could actually be made to work in a real environment. At the very least it was the opportunity of a lifetime!

First thing to do...get the palace reorganized, and find some reliable people who could help him get things back into some sort of functioning condition. To that end that fellow who had spoken out for him, Castor the Elder, was good place to start...obviously a clever and opportunistic fellow who was hungry for his position, and a capable merchant who had built his fortune up the old fashioned way-by ruthlessly undercutting his competition and driving out any elements that might have interfered with turning a good profit. A man like that could go far in any organization...just as long as the man on top of the financial pyramid was careful in channeling his energies towards other things besides mischief. True such a fellow might have low moral character and could well wind up embezzling funds to himself, to say nothing of using his position to "settle old scores," practices which might well get out of hand if Oedipus was not careful to monitor and curb such behavior.

But if there was one thing that living in a palace had taught him it was that a Kingdom was run on the foundation of such men. Ideals were all well and good, but you couldn't eat them and they wouldn't keep the people happy...they had to be balanced by tempered reason and sound judgement, and if you were going to have a scoundrel on the payroll, best to keep him close on hand where you can watch him with much care, knowing that such a fellow would be a good buffer against others of similar temperament...like hiring a thief to deter other thieves, as it were. Better to have a competent crook working for you than against you, and better such a man than a hapless-but-well-meaning fellow.

Second issue to resolve...Taxes. No one liked them, everyone insisted that someone else should have to pay them, and yet without such revenues you might as well not have a kingdom at all. Best to regard it as "paying the landlord" for occupancy of the city and for the safety and security that its walls and soldiers presented. A minimum tax for security purposes would be supported by anyone who felt more secure, so it was best to establish a ground minimum upon which the city itself could operate and go on from there to factor in costs and establish a discretionary income. The palace needed to get back on a stable footing before any of its other problems could be resolved, so cutting expenses down to the bare minimum was quite naturally in order...once Oedipus factored in the number of people who took bribes from the previous king for one reason or another.

A mistake frequently made by Tyrants was to tax the poor people, who naturally did not have very much money to begin with (read: NONE), on the grounds that the poor had no choice but to "fork over" their goods. This was itself a very bad policy as it insured that the poor stayed poor and would not be able to scale up the financial ladder into basic sufficiency, and that would insure that city morale stayed low while the populace would be moody and lethargic. Far better to consider the people themselves as a resource and to use them appropriately in lieu of actual payment. A few public works programs (such as fixing the damned palace and making it look nice, for one thing) would help solve both the unemployment and poverty problems, not to mention serve as justification to divert food and resources where they would actually be needed.

Best not to call it charity, though...nobles and the few rich folk in the city were downright allergic to any program that started with the word "Public Welfare."

Obviously the second mistake that many a king would make with taxes was the far more fatal one of underestimating the merchants and nobles, the people who actually had the money in the Kingdom. These were privileged people of means who believed that they were favored by the gods, and doing anything which might disabuse this of their notion was a sure recipe to winding up on their bad side.

Here, too, was a valuable resource to be exploited, but not simply through an excess of taxation. Far better to incorporate these potentially troublesome classes into the new order, the better to make them contribute to the improved economy while making them think that they were getting more out of the deal than they were losing. The name of the thing was usually the key to gaining their cooperation...call something by a more pleasant Euphemism and they would be less likely to oppose it, such as funding education for the poor and illiterate (who were most of the children born into the city) as a "Resource Enrichment Labor Enhancement" program, so workers could actually sign their own names and read leaflets, important commodities if one was to rebuild the mercantile and trade economy from the ground up...thus generating enough revenues through low tariff percentages that would bring in the raw capitol that could be used to find this and other projects...WITHOUT actually raising taxes!

Third issue to address...trade ties and military alliances. So many broken fences needed to be shorn up there, so many neighbors to be assuaged, so many new alliances to forge, and the most important part of all was deciding who the true enemies were, and how best to play them off of one another...

"Darling...are you going to be doing that all night?"

Oh yes, one of the other important perks of this job...his new wife, the lovely (and VERY energetic) Jocasta...quite a marvel that lady. For a recent widow she was certainly not suffering from the pangs of bereavement. Hard to believe that she was old enough to be his mother...

"Coming, Dear!" Oedipus called over his shoulder, feeling very much the randy man after his surprising performance of the previous evening, "Just another candlewick..."

"You said that five candlewicks ago," she complained, "I'm lonely..."

Oedipus turned and smiled at her. Say what you would about hasty weddings, she certainly was a tempting package. Just looking at her tended to make him feel his oats, and with a woman such as this at his side he was certain that their relationship would be legendary. She accepted him-limp and all-as her man and had even proven to have an able mind and was a good conversationalist...two qualities he much enjoyed in a woman. Somehow just being around her made him feel...very good indeed. Like being in the arms of his own mother, only...much more perky. He certainly could not ask the gods for a better companion when starting out as the new King of this benighted kingdom.

"I promise you, Jocasta," he smiled, "With me around you need never feel alone again."

"That's nice," she leaned over and draped her arms about his shoulders, then kissed him affectionately on the cheek (rather like a mother, in fact, though the effect on his system was anything but the response of a dutiful son), "Reading all these dusty things by lamplight can't be too good for your eyesight."

"You're probably right about that," he mused, setting down the dusty parchment he had been reading, "Very well, I'll join you in bed. Not much else to keep me here besides matters that can wait until morning."

"Don't be late," she smiled as she drifted back to the living quarters of the palace, her smile and the exaggerated wiggle of her hips giving him two good reasons to forget about this Kingly business...at least until the morning.

No sooner was his newly wed wife out of sight, however, then another figure detached itself from the shadows, moving with uncanny silence in its motions, which caught Oedipus's eye and made him turn about as he heard her gentle, mocking laughter.

"So...this is the great Lame King who claims to have bested me...not much of a warrior, are you?"

Oedipus blinked his eyes and showed his surprise to the young girl...maybe nine or eleven? Hair was a bit of an odd color, but that might have been a trick of the lamplight.

"Excuse me?" Oedipus replied, "Do I know you, young lady?"

"No," she smiled and showed some rather impressive teeth for a little girl, "Obviously not, but that isn't the real problem...not for me, anyway..."

"Are you a member of the royal family?" Oedipus asked politely, "I'm afraid I haven't had the time to properly greet all of my in-laws just yet..."

"I am the Lenaean Hydra," she said simply as if making informal introductions.

"Are you...oh?" Oedipus blinked, "I beg your pardon?"

"The Hydra...in the flesh, if you will," the girl said again, "Who you are said to have slain as one of you many Kingly miracles."

"Oh," Oedipus blinked again, "Well...actually, I'm not the one who claimed...er...excuse me for asking, but..."

"I wear the shape of a child because I am newly reborn," the girl replied, "I was severely injured, the goddess Athena chastised me after I attempted to eat her mortal form, and to save my life I regenerated, casting off my old form in exchange for this. I look human to you now, but if I were to assume my other aspect I would be a shape far too terrible for mortal eyes to behold...do you want a demonstration?"

"Um, not really," Oedipus replied, wondering if this were some jest on the part of the child, and whether or not he ought to summon her governess and give her a stern lecture about wandering around loose after hours.

"I see doubt in your eyes, Mortal," the child replied, and then suddenly she began to change and grow before the eyes of the astonished Oedipus, taking on a form so huge that she filled the chamber all the way to the ceiling.

**NOW WHAT DO YOU THINK OF MY CLAIMS TO BE THE HYDRA?** she asked in a voice that resonated inside his skull rather than in his eardrums.

"Er..." Oedipus said faintly, wondering if fainting would be a good way to avoid the pain of being eaten by a monster.

The form shank back into a child's body, "Now you know that I have survived, I require only one thing from you Great King, and then I shall leave you to your fate...where is Herakles? The Hero who truly bested me as you most certainly did not!"

"Herakles?" Oedipus blinked, "I know an Ithicles, but I'm sure I don't know anyone by that other name...why do you ask?"

For a moment the child's eyes seemed to glow, then she turned away, "I see that you speak the truth, very well then, I shall be on my way. Don't bother attempting to stop me..."

"Oh, I won't Oedipus assured, "Um...you're not going to eat me or anything like that, are you?"

"No," the child gave him a wry look, "I do the bidding of Queen Hera, my patron on Olympus, and I have learned that Zeus has commanded that you be spared from such things. Besides...I already know what fate has in store for you, and were it possible that I might bear you any malice, I would still not wish such a fate upon you. Now, I must be on my way to find the hero who bested me. Be well until then, Great King...oh...and change your name while you're at it. Lame Foot isn't a very dignified title for a king..."

"Really?" Oedipus asked, "Then what would you suggest?"

"You'll figure something out," the child replied, "After all, if you bested the Sphinx, my cousin, then surely you already know the answer."

"I do?" Oedipus blinked, then murmured, "I know...Oida...that does have something of a ring to it. Even sounds a bit Kingly. Um...I'll see about having them correct that bit about the Hydra...who was it you said again did the deed?"

"Herakles," the child replied before vanishing back into the shadows, "The wrath of my mistress, Hera."

"Herakles...odd name for a hero," Oedipus frowned, "Wonder what she meant about my fate? Oh well...probably nothing important. Hmm...I wonder if there's anything worthwhile to drink about this place. Oh well...Jocasta's waiting, and I'm not getting any younger..."

And so the new King of Thebes drifted down the corridor heading for his bed chamber, wholly unsuspecting that the Fates-at that very moment-had cast him in a role that was very much unlike the vagabond that he had been the previous evening...

"Well," mused Chalciope in a mildly sarcastic voice, "Look who finally has deigned to honor us with her illustrious presence. Don't you look smug and chipper this morning..."

"Why, whatever do you mean?" Maegara replied innocently as she sat down by the fire that was being tended to by Deianeira, "Didn't you sleep well last night, dear Sisters?"

"I did!" Antiope said brightly with a pleasant smile upon her features, "Haven't slept like that in ages...how about you, Sis?"

"Hmm?" Hippolyta mused, looking up from her own breakfast, "Oh yes...quite pleasant, actually. Nice to see you haven't lost your technique over the centuries, Auntie."

"Heh, I was doing this sort of thing before the both of you were even a mote in the eye of your Daddy," Chalciope snorted, "But I was talking about you, Sis...you damned well woke the whole neighborhood howling like a cat in heat near the end there, when that privacy spell of yours finally wore off."

"Um...well..." Maegara said with a sheepish smile of her own as if reluctant to admit to how much fun it had been to be with Herakles all through the night, though the memory of it alone brought a pleasant warmth to her cheeks as she thought fleetingly of her own rather vigorous performance.

"That's what we figured," Atalanta sniffed, "Go brag about it somewhere else instead of rubbing it in our noses already. Have to say, though...I always figured you for a groaner, not a screamer, Sis."

"Now Mother," Hippolyta chided, "That is hardly a nice way to address my new co-
wife after she has been properly bedded by my husband..."

Just a hint of frost entered Maegara's expression as she said, "I beg your pardon?"

"Well, you did enjoy your first time with a man in-ooooh...was it a thousand years or merely six hundred? I don't much keep track of these things these days, but..."

"That's not the part I'm asking about," Maegara said levelly, "I'm just wondering where you get off on always referring to him as YOUR husband."

"Are we back to that already?" Hippolyta sounded more amused than offended by the tone of the Avatar of Athena, "You know, by the law of Zeus, that I am required to marry the man who has defeated me in battle, and he is such a rare specimen at that, more man than I think any one woman should have to hoard all to herself..."

"And you intend to deal yourself in...just like that," Maegara continued to scowl in the direction of her semi-divine niece.

"Well, technically he is being given the right to choose to either accept or reject me, but I hardly think that's much of an issue at the moment," Hippolyta replied, "The point is that I believe that I was being generous to allow you to have first dibs on a complete virgin. The very least that you could do is to thank me for the kindness of my gesture."

"Kindness," Maegara repeated, "What are you really up to, Niece? I never knew you were this generous about anything, especially in the old days..."

"What I was a thousand or so years ago is hardly pertinent to the present discussion," Hippolyta replied, "I've changed much from the time when I gave up my divinity to incarnate as a half-mortal. You do me no credit if you think my motives are so simple that you can reduce them to the level of harboring ulterior motives...and besides...I rather fancy the notion of having you for a co-wife. You were always quite the unapproachable sort back when I first knew you, Palas Athena. If anyone here has change and grown it would be you, Goddess."

"I may have changed because I fused with a mortal body," Maegara replied, "But everything else about me is the same, including my memory, and the Hippolyta I knew back then was a masterful tactician and one heck of a card player. You never show your full hand to anybody, and you've always got something up your sleeve that you're not showing until you play it..."

"Gotta admit, that does pretty much describe you, Sis," Antiope remarked, "Like that time you were playing that Egyptian board game...the one with the pegs...and you drew a straight duce on Melanippe, pissed the hell out of her and she all but accused you of cheating..."

"That's enough ancient history, Sister," Hippolyta urged before looking frankly at Maegara, "I understand your concerns, but this is larger than you imagine. I have been promised something by Hecate herself, and in exchange for that promise I have vowed not to interfere in your romantic pursuit of my husband."

"He's not your husband, and what did that witch promise you?" Maegara frowned, "Do you think you're going to win Herakles's love by use of her magic?"

"No," Hippolyta replied simply, "Hecate has vowed that she will not interfere on my behalf in any way, other than to bring me here from Amazonia. She will remain completely neutral, other than to bestow her favors on those whom she deems as deserving of the attention."

"Like you?" Maegara replied.

Hippolyta gave her the lazy sort of smile that would have been fitting on a hungry lioness, "I need no tricks or enchantments to win a husband for myself. I will do it by my own means or not at all...it is the way of the Amazons. You would understand it if you paid us more attention in the future."

"But you said she promised you something," Chalciope pointed out, "Like...what?"

"That I am not saying," Hippolyta's smile became more serene, "Other than the fact that I am assured my victory, which is why I can afford to be generous on other matters."

"Why you..." Maegara frowned.

"Fsssst-Fssst!" Atalanta made clawing motions with her hands as though scratching the empty air before her and her fellow divine kin, "Cat-fight in process, and before any of us have even had time to finish off our breakfast."

"Oh yes," Deianeira spoke up, "Please do drop the matter for now if you would, Sister and Niece. It's such a lovely morning, it would be a shame to spoil it with violence, especially since you seem to have enjoyed yourself quite a lot, dear Athena."

"Ah...well..." that set another round of blushing on Maegara's cheeks, though she was surprised at the unusually frank observation on the part of her other, far more demure, sibling.

"No fooling," Atalanta grinned, "I can feel the aura radiating off of you from here, Sis. You really liked doing it with the guy...a LOT don't even cover it. Man, this is sure something! A couple thousand years of you being the wet blanket in the family and all of a sudden you're performing stunts that would even have me feeling backstrain in the morning..."

"Sheesh, what is it you guys see in the guy?" Chalciope winced, "It's like you were in love with him or something..."

"Even I could sense that, Auntie," Hippolyta smirked, "Why do you think I had no objections to giving her first crack at our husband?"

"He's not-!" Maegara started to protest when Herakles, Iolaus and Genma came wandering back into the clearing from the edge of the nearby river.

"Hey, don't stop on our account," Iolaus pleaded, "Just go on gossiping as if we weren't here to overhear you, Sisters."

"Drop dead, you Pervert," Chalciope growled in mild irritation, though it sounded more like an old exchange between close siblings rather than the heated death threat it would have been were it Herakles to whom she was glaring. (Even peripherally he caught the note of thinly veiled suspicion from her on the probable subject of his intruding on her personal space, which was why he made a point of circling the fire to avoid her and sit down next to Maegara.

Maegara felt an odd flushing sensation of warmth pass over her as she set eyes upon the man who had so energetically kept her busy the previous evening. Her new Husband (and tried not to glare in Hippolyta's direction) looked good freshly scrubbed (and yet restored to manhood thanks to Iolaus and a pot of hot water served by Deianeira) and groomed for the morning, shining in her eyes like the sun rising out from the mountains on Sol's Chariot drawn by Apollo and his magnificent chargers. He was every inch the manly man and every inch desirable, especially in the eyes of this particular Incarnate Goddess...

Herakles himself was just coming fresh from a bath, switching from male to female to male again with the resultant confusion of urges and hormones. Seeing Maegara freshly bathed again and as beautiful as on the night before was like raw meat thrown before a starving wolf, though his impulses were nowhere near so crude or fundamental. It was more like seeing a beautiful field of fresh flowers after stumbling through a dark and unwholesome swamp...a feeling like paradise found after a long and troublesome search. The fact that he had not even known her before the previous day hardly mattered in the slightest to him now...it was as if there were a connection between them that had been there forever. Just discovering what it meant to touch and caress her had given him a whole new meaning to life that he had never before suspected, and he found himself both humbled and walking a few inches taller for the experience. In short, seeing her now was like feeling the renewed stirrings of his previous arousal.

"Uh...hi," he said, which sounded rather lame in his own ears, so he spoke to the others in a more general sense, "How did everybody sleep last night?"

The chorus of grunts, groans and complaints (followed by a few thrown objects that bounced off of his head) answered his crude attempt at socialization, all save for Genma who hungrily began eating the food that Deianeira started passing around. Before too long everyone was joining him in enjoying an excellent breakfast, a fact that as much surprised Herakles as he said between mouthfuls, "Wow, this is sure good stuff, Sis...what do you call it?"

"Pocket pita," Deianeira replied, "It's made with flattered bread which you bake around a mixture of wholesome items, like ground up meat, nuts, vegetables and berries..."

"This is nothing, Herk," Iolaus added slyly, "Sister Hebe can whip up any kind of a meal, even from the rudest material and make it come out tasting like ambrosia..."

"Oh my," Deianeira blushed as she responded modestly, "That's a bit of an exaggeration, brother...but I do the best I can with the materials that I can scrounge off the land. If I were back in my kitchen on Olympus this poor fare would hardly be serviceable a confection. I do hope you all enjoy it, though it really isn't one of my best efforts..."

"All right by me, Auntie," Antiope grinned as she wolfed her pita down, "Haven't tasted your cooking in about a thousand years or so...nice to see some things never change..."

"Yes," Hippolyta agreed, eating her share with less haste than her younger sister, "Your fine touch has survived the centuries and is as good as I remember. A pity we don't enjoy this good a meal at home, but we have some excellent cooks who prepare our meals at the palace..."

"Mostly men of course," Antiope added, "Though Sis here can whip up a pretty good fare just using trail mix."

"Bid deal," Atalanta remarked, "My host is a pretty good cook in her own right, though she'd probably want to know your recipe, Sis. She's mostly used to slaving over a hot forge instead of a hot kitchen, but she's used to preparing her own meals...she's quite a handy person all around..."

"Yes," Chalciope frowned, "Not to mention the fact that she's one of MY worshippers. What's the matter, Aphi...couldn't find any hosts of your order, or were they all too busy spreading their legs for their clients?"

"Hey, don't complain to me, Arti," Atalanta replied, "You abandoned her a long time ago after you left her in the care of that she-bear..."

"She-bear?" Chalciope blinked.

"Yeah, what's the matter?" Atalanta smiled, "You forget all about that orphan girl you found exposed to the elements because her old man wanted a son, the one you nursed back to health with your own mother's milk, which is odd since you've never struck me as the motherly type..."

"Mother's milk?" the pig-farmer grew pale.

"Yes," Iolaus nodded, "I've been sensing that about her for quite some time now. This Atalanta...she's an immortal, right? Not to mention the daughter of some king in Athens...?"

"That's right," Atalanta confirmed, "King Melanus of Athens, who died recently and was replaced by his brother, the new King Aegius, who wants to fix Atalanta up with the son of some Cretan nobleman named Androgynous..."

"Wait a minute," Chalciope waved a hand, "You mean to say that this is the little girl I rescued almost two decades ago...the one I gave to Ursa to look after? The one I later took on hunting trips and taught how to use the bow and all that?"

"After you returned her to her mother, yes," Atalanta replied, "And later on she learned about blacksmithing from her grandfather..."

"That's gross!" Chalciope exclaimed, "You've taken over the body of a girl who I practically raised like my own daughter! Not that I've ever had any real daughters, mind you, but still..."

"Sorry," Atalanta smiled, "But finders keepers and all that..."

"Now hold on there," Herakles broke into this discussion, "Sis...what does the real Atalanta inside you have to say about this? You've taken over her body and her life, you know...aren't you ever going to let her come back to the surface to think and speak for herself?"

"Ah...well..." Atalanta winced, "There's a little...problem about that, little Brother, you see...what first attracted me to this body was the fact that the real Atalanta has a connection with you...a soul-bond, if you will, owing back to that little...exchange of promises you two made when you were little..."

"Promises?" Herakles blinked, "What promises?"

"Don't you remember?" Atalanta smiled, "When you two met, along with your half-
brother Ithicles, and got to be really close friends, you got into that race that King Melanus set up for you with the help of your Uncle Genma..."

Herakles glared at Genma, who seemed startled about being brought into the conversation, "Pop?"

"The gist of it was that Atalanta had made a bet with her father, who thought a ten year old girl who could pick up heavy boulders and talk to bears was a little weird and not likely to find her own husband without some fatherly meddling," Atalanta explained, "So the deal was that she would marry any boy who could defeat her in track and field, which you fulfilled-by the way-which is how the two of you got engaged together..."

"SAY WHAT?" Herakles looked shocked, even though this was actually the second time he had heard some version of this barely remembered story.

"Also too, your Uncle Genma agreed to betroth you to Atalanta if you should win the race, for which he won some generous prize money as an additional bonus," Atalanta continued, "The fact that you were the son of a former King just sweetened the deal from his standpoint. A marriage alliance between Athens and Thebes would certainly have been to his advantage, especially if he could use a grown up you as point guard to usurp the former tyrant and install you as his carefully groomed puppet. Too bad for him nothing quite worked out the way it was supposed to."

"Oh, terrific..." Herakles groaned, "You mean I'm engaged to her because-OW! Hey, what did you hit me for?"

"Not one whole day we've been engaged together and you're telling me you've got a secret fianc e hidden somewhere?" Maegara growled as she jabbed him once more in the ribcage.

"But I didn't even know she was a girl at the time, for crying out loud!" Herakles protested.

"Maybe so," Atalanta replied, "But when you skipped out on her and left her high and dry without a promised husband..."

"Now wait a minute!" Herakles sputtered, "I never skipped out on her! That was Uncle Genma..."

"Now Boy," Genma nervously responded, "Getting engaged like that would have interfered with your training and..."

"And just how many other times did you engaged Herakles besides to Atalanta?" Maegara asked as she rounded on the demi-Satyr.

"Um...well..." Genma grew even more evasive.

"Swell," Herakles growled as he rolled his eyes, "Terrific..."

"So you see," Atalanta resumed, "You're pulling out like that embarrassed and hurt her pretty deeply, making her feel like any chance she ever had as a woman was effectively over. That's why she went on a ten year crusade to build up her strength as a fighter so she could meet up with you once again and show you just how much she resented being abandoned..."

"I didn't abandon...oh, skip it," Herakles slumped his shoulders and looked momentarily defeated.

"And that's why I've been working on her to try and get her to cool her temper a bit on that," Atalanta replied, "Despite how normally she was acting for a while back there at the Palace, her first impulse on seeing you would have been to bash your skull in...at least without me to moderate her wrath a little on the sly, little Brother."

"It's not that I don't appreciate the gesture, Sis," Herakles replied, "But...I think I'd like the chance to try and talk to the real Atalanta in a bit, just to try and get her to accept my side of the story..."

"What story?" asked Cleo as she yawned and stretched coming into the encampment, the brawny Ithicles moving steadily by her shoulders."

"About time you two sleepy heads came and joined us," Iolaus smiled, "Have fun with your little cat-nap?"

"Hmm?" the Egyptian demi-Monster replied with a pleasant shrug of her shoulders (which riveted both Atalanta and Chalciope's attention while causing the others to stare at her full chest with variously astonished and appreciative expressions), "Oh yeah, what sleeping we did and all that, of course. So...what's for breakfast? Any tuna?"

"This far inland?" Chalciope sniffed, "I don't think so."

Herakles spared a glance towards his mortal half-brother and said, "You two get a good night's sleep together?"

"Sleep?" Ithicles responded, his eyes looked tired and worn, as though that were the very LAST thing that he and his new girlfriend had been doing together.

"Never mind," Herakles smiled, "Know the feeling, Bro."

Maegara paused to glance from one brother to the other, then vaguely wondered if she should feel complimented or insulted by that comment.

Eurypylus, the giant boar, chose that moment to wander past the encampment then froze up when he saw the speculative way that Cleo started eyeing him, which caused him to turn around and retreat back into the woodland.

There was some silence around the camp while Deianeira fed the late arrivals to their odd little party, but after chewing the question around in his mind for a while Herakles decided to approach the point directly, "Hey, Hermes...you got any idea why Hecate seemed willing to give Athena and me some slack last night? I thought she was pulling for you, Hippy."

"You thought that was all that she was about, did you?" Hippolyta seemed amused with that slightly superior air of tacit condescension that he found so annoying, "But you never see all that she holds in her hand until she is ready to play it, Husband. She is the Mistress of the Mysteries and things are never entirely what they seem when she is involved..."

"Look," Herakles frowned, "I let it slide last night because I was too tired to make a fuss about it, but I'm not your husband. I don't care what kind of tribal laws you're invoking here, I still have a say in the matter, and I haven't said yes to you that I'm aware of...no offense intended."

"None taken," Hippolyta replied in a curiously unruffled manner, "After all, you have only just met me once in a non-professional manner, and I can hardly expect you to have formed a good opinion of me based on our original first meeting. But I think, in time, you will learn that I am neither your enemy nor a true threat to your relationship with Athena. If anything, I expect you will be most surprised when you learn about the real me, the part that is both Amazon and woman, and until that time I will continue to regard you as my husband, Husband."

"Yeah, whatever," Herakles rolled his eyes, deciding that he really was in too good a mood to let it be spoiled with arguing the point with this vexing niece wanting to marry him, "Still...I'm kinda puzzled about the way Dad was acting. I mean...back on Olympus he acted like he was afraid of Hera, but then he turns around and starts leading her by the leash...and he's actually agreeing with Hecate? What gives here?"

"Yes, I have been wondering about that one myself," Iolaus nodded, "It worries me too, and I've known Dad a lot longer than you can imagine."

"What I can't get my head around is the way he and Hecate were getting along back there," Atalanta frowned, "It was downright creepy..."

"Like the two of them are in cahoots about something," Artemis scowled in concentration, "Something that involves all of us?"

Maegara blinked then said, "You know, you two have raised a very good point here...why would Daddy agree to go along with Hecate's schemes? For that matter, why is she being so deferential towards him all of a sudden? Back on Olympus she was positively defiant..."

"Yeah, and what's the story about that, huh?" Herakles asked, "I thought Dad was pretty much the invincible King of the Gods, but she just deflected his thunderbolt like it was nothing..."

"Magic is her specialty," Maegara replied, "And I doubt any energy construct imaginable would much deter her."

"Besides which," Iolaus added, "She is a Titan...reformed or not, she's incredibly ancient, been around a lot longer even than Dad, and she's mostly kept to herself until quite recently. Some of us even forgot that she still existed, it's been that long since we last saw or heard about her."

"I don't get this," Herakles frowned, "What is a Titan anyway, and how's it any different from being a God?"

"You always ask the easy questions, Handsome?" Cleo smiled in a teasing manner.

"Titans...well..." Iolaus sighed, "That's a bit of a long story. You see...back before it all began, before there were either men or gods, like in the present world, there was a truly ancient race that we call the Archons...beings of primordial Fire, the raw elemental essence of nature personified in a star-
spanning tribe of cosmic superbeings..."

"You may have heard the standard legends of how the world began, Herakles," Maegara spoke with gentle encouragement, "How nature begat the Titans, who begat the Gods, who began Mortal Men and the race of the Monsters...well...you can pretty much take all that and chuck it out the window. Spontaneous Generation is a myth that hides the truth which even we Gods are reluctant to talk about, that before any of us there were the Star Tribes known as the Archons, and that we ourselves are but a mere shadow of what they were, an echo and a burning ember of former glory."

"Exactly," Iolaus agreed, "They came into our world before there were any intelligent races who might remember, and they somehow altered the indigenous life of an earlier age to suit their purposes, evolving both Titans and Monsters from their seed being mingled with the beasts of the Earth, who were as much our ancestors as they are to the mortals..."

"What?" Ithicles asked, "But I thought that mortal men had been shaped from the primordial clay by Prometheus..."

"That's just what the Bards tell you to while away the time around campfires," Maegara responded, "All Prometheus did was cultivate the intelligence of our primitive ancestors, helping to kinder within them the spark of creativity and conscious self-awareness that would lead them to glory in the Golden Age of long ago...the time before Promethean Fire scorched the planet...when his creations got a bit too clever for their own good, for which Prometheus was summarily punished by Daddy."

"But isn't Prometheus the one who gave fire to mankind so that they could cook their food and make offerings to the gods?" Herakles asked.

"Grow up little Brother," Chalciope sniffed, "Any fool can rub two sticks together fast enough to strike a spark, but the kind of fire that 'Thena's talking about could burn a lot more than just a forest on fire. Prometheus taught mortals how to use the fire that's within them to become more than ordinary men, and some went a little bit too wild experimenting with this power."

Genma looked up unexpectedly. Something about this drift of conversation stirred faint memories in his mind from his own long-ago days of training.

"Ah yes," Iolaus said sagely, "A bit shortsighted of Prometheus, really, which is not at all what you would expect of the fellow. After all, his name means Forethought, so he must have known the consequences of teaching mankind how to use their own inner spiritual powers."

"Prometheus is one of the ancient Titans who sided with the Gods against Chronos and the others of the old order," Hippolyta noted smoothly, "He convinced his brother, Epimetheus, to join him on the side of grandfather Zeus, but they were never able to similarly convince their older brother, Atlas, to join them. Odd thing is...Epimetheus is the one who was later tricked by Zeus into unleashing the plagues on humanity that nearly wiped out one quarter of all the mortals then in existence."

"Afterthought was his specialty," Atalanta nodded, "But I still think it was a crock for Daddy to use my daughter, Pandora, as the delivery person. Now she spends all her time trying to hunt down the demons she released so she can imprison them back inside that damned box..."

"Why did Dad want to unleash the plagues on humanity?" Herakles frowned, "That sounds a bit ruthless, even for him."

"It was meant to counter the damage Prometheus did by trying to make Mortals more like Gods," Iolaus replied, "It shortened human life expectancy for those who survived it and laid waste to many of those who had mastered Promethean fire...those, that is, who didn't develop really strong Chi and also learn the art of self-healing."

"Honestly," Chalciope sniffed, "You'd think Prometheus would have learned from past mistakes what it means to expect Mortals to know how to handle our kind of power. It took most of us centuries to get the basics down...you don't just spring out of your Momma's womb automatically knowing everything. Honestly, some Mortals want everything right here and now and they don't want to have to work for it. I can't stand it when guys feel like accelerating the evolutionary process...it just ain't natural! It took Gaea herself countless generations of trial and error to get the process just right..."

"Are you saying that you're against progress?" Ithicles asked.

"Well, no...not if it can be done working within the lines of nature," Chalciope shrugged, "I mean, obviously it's been a big improvement for people to leave grass huts and learn to live in mud-brick buildings that don't get flooded every season, but I've never had much truck with City People anyway. I'm a back-to-
nature girl, and I can get along just fine without all this technological innovation."

"You mean like when they developed the compound bow?" Iolaus asked shrewdly.

"Hey, don't get started on me about that, Bro," Chalciope warned, "Besides...bows don't kill people, people kill people..."

"You mean people with arrows and bows kill other people," Maegara corrected.

"Yeah, well, so it's a new and improved kind of killing power, so what?" Chalciope shrugged, "Can't take it away from honest hunters, their right to put food on the table, just as long as they remember to pray to the spirit of the animal and thank the Mother for her bounty. Mark me well, if Bows were outlawed, then only Outlaws would carry Bows..."

"Well, one good thing you can say about them," Iolaus smiled, "It's awfully hard to shoot yourself with one while you're cleaning."

"Tell me a little more about this...Promethean fire, huh?" Herakles asked, unconsciously patting his own trusty compound bow, which he used mostly for hunting, a heavy monster that only he knew how to draw and shoot with accuracy, "How exactly does it work?"

"Well, you ought to know, Bro," Iolaus shrugged, "You've been studying under Genma, who already knows how to tap into his own Spiritual Fire. Just imagine being able to do that on a larger scale, like concentrating your energy so you could put a hole in the side of a mountain..."

"Interesting," Hippolyta mused, "We study similar techniques in Amazonia, but very few warriors ever master more than the basics."

"Yes, well..." Maegara sighed, "It really goes back to what you were asking before, Herakles, about what defines a God from a Titan. The Titans were incredibly ancient descendants of the original Archons, but they mixed their blood with mortal men to create a hybrid race that was half-mortal, half-
immortal. Somehow this quality that makes one divine has been passed down like a recessive trait over the countless generations of Mortal and Immortal interaction, diluting its strength and purity over time so that the trait has been lost to most of humanity...but occasionally it resurfaces in the form of a prodigy, a gifted child who shows traces of the divine in his overall makeup."

"It's kind of like this, you see," Iolaus smiled, "Children born of Gods and Mortals don't all wind up inheriting the divine gene...whatever it is, like your great-grandfather, Perseus, the one who slew Medusa..."

"Oh yeah?" Herakles asked with a slight frown, "What about my great-granddad?"

"He wasn't as fortunate as you in his inheritance," Maegara explained, "The divine gene was weaker within him, and yet he still was more than an ordinary mortal. Tall, proud, brave, truly heroic, much stronger than an ordinary man, and yet all-too-mortal. When he won the hand of the fair Andromeda he then settled down and became King of Tyrins, hung up his saddles, gave the head of Medusa to me and went into semi-retirement and founded the line of the Danae, from which your own mother's clan originated."

"Why did he wind up inheriting less than Herakles?" Ithicles asked with a puzzled expression.

"We're not really sure why," Iolaus answered truthfully, "But we think it has something to do with the divine gene being recessive... by choosing a woman of the Danae, Dad insured that the gene would be fully active in the case of Herakles, and-sure enough-he's got fully divine traits and is almost a trueborn Immortal. Only the mating of two Gods or Titans is supposed to yield that strong an inheritance..."

"There is some dilution present, of course," Maegara added, "But we think that this may be the very process by which the Titans themselves originally came into existence."

"Say what?" Herakles looked at the beautiful woman at his side, "You've got to be kidding."

"There's a little secret about the divine gift that we were all born with which you ought to know about, little Brother," Iolaus replied, "It can be made to grow stronger by training or by acting in a way that is consistent with your own true nature. Understand, we all tap into the same vast pool of divine power...we all draw from a common well of inexhaustible spiritual energy, but as a consequence of this, no one God is truly all-powerful. We divide the power up among us with the greatest amount of the power going to those of us who are the most true to our own individual niche in the hierarchy. For example, I use speed of thought and body to travel great distances through the act of running. The more I ran as a boy, the stronger my legs became, and the faster I could go. I also learned to do clever things as a youth which...more or less endeared me to the other Gods..."

"You mean you were an impressible scamp, always playing tricks on everybody," Maegara smiled with infection, "A practical joker...until you grew up and settled down more in your ways..."

"Heh, well...I still keep my hand in the game, just to keep in practice," Iolaus smiled, "Like planting 'Kick Me' signs on the back of Brother Ares...but the point is, I established my niche early and became the God of Speed, Thought, Thievery and Message delivery. I later became a patron of the arts, and I sometimes exchange friendly notes with an Egyptian friend of mine named Thoth..."

"Oh yeah," Cleo spoke up, "Old Ibis Head himself. That's who you remind me of...I was trying to figure you out all day, and here it was right out in the open...like, duh!"

"Don't worry about it," Iolaus smiled, "To Egyptians I'm known as the Thrice Majestic One, but to Osiris I'm that annoying guy who planted his scepter handle-up on his throne so when he sat down without looking...well...it sure got the royal Court of the City of the Dead up in a titter."

"I, of course, established my niche as a goddess of the Intellect and of sage council in battles," Maegara continued, "Studying and learning all that there is to know has been my hobby since...well...since I first can remember. I've always tried to strike a balance between the mind and the body, and because I am so good at this I am the patron of Librarians and Military Strategists alike."

"Yeah, well, my thing is Hunting," Chalciope remarked, "When I'm not up in the sky drawing the Moon Chariot, which normally I leave to cousin Selene to handle. Ares is a bloodthirsty thug who likes soldiering and battles, while Aphi here is a raging Nympho..."

"Look whose talking," Atalanta sniffed, "At least I don't confine my sexual forays to just Nymphs. A good Stud in the sack is almost as good as a juicy Furburger in the hay..."

"Now you're talking my language," Cleo smiled in a way that oddly made Ithicles look nervous.

"The point is," Iolaus resumed, "We're all good at something, specialists in our respective fields of expertise, and with only a slight bit of overlap between our various zones of influence. Over the centuries we've learned to basically get along and keep out of each other's way, and the Lesser Gods in our Pantheon have pretty-much learned not to step on our toes, and so forth. We're all extremely good at one particular thing, and that thing is the point where our divine power is at its strongest measure...in other words, the more we stress the thing we're best at, the more the divine spark within us is strengthened."

"So it's like training," Genma spoke up rather unexpectedly, "You use it or lose it, just like any other kind of muscle."

"Yes, that is a good analogy," Maegara reluctantly conceded, "And-conversely-
-what which we do not use tends to become our weakest aspects...such as those among us who seldom employ higher thought processes to our actions. I'm not pointing any fingers here, but more than a few of us would rank as below even human intellect if you judged merely by performance..."

"That's not entirely true, Sis," Iolaus corrected, "Being a God means having to balance tremendous levels of power that ordinary mortals could never hope to understand. Even a god slow of wits uses more of their brain potential just regulating this power than any score of geniuses on the mortal plane. Perhaps in a few cases that might even explain why they are such idiot savants in other matters, like sister Aphrodite here, who is much more clever than she lets on with her frilly act of wanton debauchery and promiscuous behavior..."

"Hey!" Atalanta scowled, "Watch the adjectives there, you think I can't figure out what you're trying to say about me, little Brother?"

"Getting back to the original point once again," Maegara smoothly made a point to divert the pursuit of THAT particular subject, "We believe that the Titans evolved a closer kinship with their divine link to the primordial power. They lived for thousands of years and grew both ancient and wise in the use of their powers, and it affected them on a physical level, causing some to grow to gigantic proportions while others compacted their frames and could pass as normal humans...at least on the surface. The race of the Giants is descended from their stock, giants being more elemental and mortal than Titans, yet still possessed of the divinity that makes them larger than human."

"Beyond a certain point a Titan becomes so fixed in his niche of the power that he takes on the aspect of the literal embodiment of that element of nature," Iolaus further noted, "And when they became truly ancient and monstrous beings of indescribable power they went beyond the boundaries of what even we Gods consider a state of normalcy. A few were driven mad by their powers, others took on monstrous shapes that befitted their nature, some even going well beyond what we could even hope to define as human. By the time Dad and the other New Gods came around the world was pretty much their oyster, and ordinary mortals lived in thrall to the rule of Chronos and the great Twelve who dominated their pantheon. Everything was micromanaged, the world was pretty much held in stasis with very little progress beyond the technology of long-ago Atlantis...an ancient Empire which Chronos himself wanted destroyed when they became too powerful for his liking."

"These days Chronos has been exiled to the veil of time and dwells beyond the mortal plane of reality," Maegara noted, "He exists through time, he is Time embodied, structured and ordered, yet far beyond the reach of the mortal plane that used to be his providence. When Daddy and the other gods established their new regime it was as much an upset of the balance of nature as it was the dawning of a new age, the Silver Age of the Moon Kingdom, which Artemis could tell you quite a lot about since it happens to be one of her proudest accomplishments."

"Yeah, well..." Chalciope shrugged, "Even I can dabble in the city-state business once in a while, gonna make a point about it?"

"The Moon Kingdom is the forerunner of the Amazon model that is enjoined by myself and my sisters," Hippolyta casually remarked, "It is where we gained the name of Amazon...Moon Women..."

"Huh?" Ithicles blinked, "I thought it meant 'Without Breasts?'"

"Oh yeah, right," Antiope made a face, "Like we'd make ourselves chop off a boob to improve our archery...I mean, are you kidding? Take a look at these babies!" she proudly displayed her chest, which had only been partially covered by chiton, "And they're one hundred percent real too...!"

"Ah..." Herakles blinked, only to feel a slap on his arm from Maegara, to which he said, "What?"

"There are a lot of stories told about us that are quite patently untrue," Hippolyta noted with a disdainful toss of her head, "Like that nonsense where we supposedly cripple our own sons to make them invalids...pure invention by our enemies, slander told to blacken our reputation and make us seem like monsters in the eyes of ordinary women."

"Like invading Thrace on five separate occasions hadn't already done that?" Atalanta remarked tartly.

"We were just promoting our interests and expanding our frontier to give our people more land, Mother," Hippolyta replied benignly, "Had we succeeded in conquering all of Greece, then it would have meant a new Golden Age, one where men were taught to properly respect a woman."

"Where have I heard that one before?" Iolaus rolled his eyes then sighed, "So...you see what we're getting at here, Herk? The Archons gave birth to the Titans, who gave birth in turn to Dad and the other Primary Gods of Olympus, of which we are the second and third generation?"

"Uh...kinda," Herakles scratched his short beard with a thoughtful expression, "So you're saying that Gods and Mortals are a lot more closely related than I'd ever heard before...but if that's so, then why the big cover up? Why all the stories about us being two separate kinds of people?"

"Politics," Maegara replied, "Would you want to give mortals the idea that they might potentially be able to one day live without us, or-even worse-to become Gods themselves, or even to forget all about us?"

"Heh, sounds like you guys have it a lot worse than in Egypt," Cleo remarked, "Back home the Gods of the Nile rule over everything, and you can't even take a dump without saying a prayer to the river god blessing your own fertilizing of the crops and all that. Of course our Gods are pretty much content to let things slide...most of the time, except for that time over a century back when one of the Pharaohs went nuts and dabbled in Monotheism..."

"Dabbled in what?" Ithicles blinked.

"It's like this, Handsome," Cleo explained, "In Egypt there's a big celestial pyramid with Father Ra at the top and everybody else on the bottom. Like the guys here just got done explaining, having many gods means the divine well of power gets divided up into different niches, each God supervising some aspect of divinity that's separate from all the others. Frankly we kind of like it that way, the competition between them tends to keep things honest...but Pharaoh Amenhotep IV couldn't leave well enough alone. One day he just up and proclaimed that there was only one God, and guess who he meant to be the only prophet?"

"One God?" Herakles frowned, "That's not really possible, is it?"

"You tell me," Cleo shrugged, "Story goes that some shepherd boy made a real name for himself by finding this jug that contained a Daemon called Abraxos...or something like that...also calls himself Lucifer, I hear...you guys know anything about that?"

She asked the latter point as she noticed how the group suddenly got quite pale and still all of a sudden.

"Lucifer," Iolaus said with a frown, "We've heard of him...do go on."

"Well," Cleo scratched behind one ear and wondered if she should have even brought the subject up in the first place, "Maybe I should explain a little something about our history. You see...about three or four centuries back, during the sixteenth and seventeenth dynasties, the Middle Kingdom got divided up into three warring camps that each claimed a different line of succession. That was the period of the overlapping Pharaohs, and one of them was a foreign mercenary who's claimed his crown by force of arms. During one of our little civil war spats this guy had been at the head of a mercenary force that got employed by one claimant to the throne of Osiris, only he overthrew his boss and took the job for himself, introducing modern war chariots and cavalry for the first time to the Middle Kingdom. These guys were called the Hyksos, and they were a pretty ruthless bunch of foreign-born tyrants who dominated the land until they got overthrown by Amhose the First, who established the Eighteenth dynasty (after systematically removing the other claimants, of course). The Hyksos were then kicked out of the Kingdom, all except for a few mercenary contingents, who were kept on as auxiliaries as a deterrent to other would-be troublemakers. They were given their own city and made to pay the local taxes by contributing to the labor on various building projects and stuff like that..."

"So, what has this got to do with Lucifer?" Herakles asked.

"Everything," the Sphinx replied, "A few Pharaohs further down the line, we come to Amenhotep, who seems to have fallen under the mysterious influence of that shepherd boy and his pet Daemon, and the next thing you know he goes on a mad spree by proclaiming his 'One God' fixation. He introduces a new cult devoted to Aten-Ra instead of Amon-Ra, which is the real name of our Supreme Chief of the Pantheon. Somehow this new god was able to conquer and suppress all the other gods while his priests went about smashing and defacing their idols, forbidding their worship, and he even changed his name to Akhenaton to signify his devotion. He moved the royal court from Thebes to some place out in a Gods-
forsaken desert, and from there the Middle Kingdom started to go to Heck in a hand-woven basket..."

"Why is that?" Genma asked, curiously drawn to the subject of religion, which normally gave him a case of hives.

"Because one guy running everything without the various Gods and Lesser Spirits to intervene?" Cleo sniffed, "PUH-LEASE! Not only was the river Nile unable to flow properly on time but a number of people started to get really sick without proper Priestly attention. Akhenaton proved to be something of a real flake who was simply uninterested in politics, and he let the Middle Kingdom go to seed, which is about the time when the Hibiru started to become a problem in the hill country of our Eastern borders. Near the end of this reign Egypt got hit by a really bad spell of Cholera, the river literally turned red with algae and drove a number of pests right into the city...you know, frogs and stuff you don't even want to know about. Children started dying mysteriously in their sleep, it got so bad that the people were ready to riot and finally did when they'd had enough of hearing about how much Aten-Ra was supposed to have loved them. The High Priests took care of things, making sure Akhenaton was one of those who blissfully passed away in his sleep, then they consulted the oracles and determined that the Ancient Gods were angry, that they'd all somehow been imprisoned and were causing these plagues to beset Egypt. The cure they recommended was to do away with Aten worship and to restore the old temples, and soon everything was back to normal again, except-of course-that the remaining Hyksos were made the scapegoat for the whole affair and were given the royal boot, told to pack up all their belongings and to leave the Nile basin, and to take their 'foreign god' with them, thank you very much..."

"Interesting," Maegara mused, "I had heard rumors about something very much like this...only the accounts told in the lands of the Cananites was...somewhat different."

"I'm not surprised," Cleo sniffed, "Those guys were barely even literate, except for their priestly class, which was headed by some tyrannical clown of a cult leader, a really ruthless bastard by the name of Ahmoses. He left with several thousand mercenaries and cultists and cut along our coastal borders where he and his band of thugs sacked a temple to the Goddess Hathor, stole all their treasures and melted their gold into a pair of winged Cherubim to serve as the frame on which they carried that damned Box that was said to be the resting place of their pet Daemon. A local governor tried to chase them out into some swamp lands, but their chariots got stuck in the mud, which left them easy pickings for the Hyksos. Ahmoses and his followers then fled into Egypt and somehow wound up as far south as the borders to Edom. They wandered around in that damned desert for something like forty years before they settled in the foothills north of the Palestine area, and ever since then they've been a constant nuisance to the Cananite cities, especially since they joined with the Hibiru and formed their own tribal state based on banditry and other sorts of anti-social behavior."

"Sounds like a bunch of really fun guys," Herakles frowned, "And you say Lucifer is their sponsor?"

"Calls himself something else these days," Cleo replied, "I Am, or something like that. Mind you, I've only heard the travel tales told about these people around campfires, but they've got a real hatred for city people and those who belong to different religions. They keep insisting that their god is the only one who actually exists, that all other gods are just empty idols and stuff like that. They've even come up with a new word to describe this: 'Fornication,' which roughly translates in your language to, 'Worship of False Idols.'"

"Really?" Atalanta asked, "Funny...it sounds kind of sexy to me..."

"I can't believe that these people are all as bad as you're describing," Ithicles pointed out, "I've been around the Hibiru before and they seemed like perfectly nice people...a bit strict about their rules and customs, but no worse than when I spent time among the Hittites."

"Well," Iolaus drawled, "It's been my experience that no people, no matter how crude their existence, are ever entirely all good or all bad once you get to know them..."

"Really?" Herakles sniffed, "Then you ought to meet the Kurgans, then you can tell me all about that, Bro."

"I must confess that I am a bit concerned with what you say here," Maegara informed Cleo, "If Lucifer is cultivating an army under the banner of a new cult...one that forbids the worship of other Gods besides himself..."

"That could indeed spell real mischief," Hippolyta agreed, "If he has somehow found a way to trap and suppress the worship of other deities, then it is conceivable that he may be planning to do the same to Olympus. I was not present at the time, of course, but I heard about his infamous vow that he would one day unseat grandfather and rule as the new head of Olympus."

"You mean that guy could wind up in charge of everybody?" Antiope blinked.

"Worse than that," Iolaus replied, "If he could trap all of us and steal our power, then rule as the only official God over everybody, then there's no telling what mischief he might do...for a sure thing a guy with that much power would be downright scary, and given that it's a smooth talking operator like Lucifer we're describing here..."

"Right," Herakles nodded, "Bad news all the way."

"Um..." Deianeira started everyone by speaking up suddenly, which was completely unexpected from her.

"You have something you want to add here, Sis?" Iolaus asked.

"I was just wondering," Deianeira ventured, "If little brother Lucifer is planning some kind of mischief against father...then why hasn't father himself taken steps to do something about this?"

"Good question," Maegara frowned, "Daddy's not the type to just sit and wait for things to happen...but it's a long way from here to the land of Canaan, and it's territory belonging to another entire pantheon of Gods...the Baals of various distinctions..."

"The what?" Ithicles asked.

"Baal is the word for 'Lord' over there, Handsome," Cleo replied, "Almost every male God has a Baal before his name...like Baal Asamoth, Baal Zebub, Baal Alam, Baal Yaweh and stuff like that. The major Goddess of their pantheon is Asteroth, the Star Maiden..."

"Really?" Maegara's eyes sharpened slightly, "How odd...that name sounds almost like Asteria, the Titaness of the heavens, daughter of Phoebe of the Moon and..."

Herakles saw his lady companion suddenly sit bolt upright with an astonished expression, which prompted him to say, "What? What's wrong?"

"Yeah," Chalciope remarked, "You look like you just sat on a bur or something."

"Worse, much worse," Maegara said as her face drained of color, "I've just remembered who else Asteria is supposed to be...the mother of Hecate!"

There was silence following that pronouncement, broken only when Antiope spoke up, "Um...is it just me, or does that sound maybe just a wee bit too coincidental...?"

Comments/Criticisms/Catechisms and Complaints: shadowmane

The true depths of Lucifer's perfidy will begin to be made plain next chapter as the Exiled rebel God plots his own mischief against Herakles and his kinsfolk. Meanwhile our hero heads for Mycenea in time for a royal Stag Hunt, and yet another heroic figure will be showcased in the very near future. Stay with us for the next exciting romp in, "Kosher Wars," or "The Hind is Quicker than the Rye!" Be there!

X -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

If you wish to check out my other works, Please check out my Fanfiction webpage at: . All related chapters of this series can be found there along with my other works.